


Pink Shoes

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Foxtrot [59]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Dollhouse - Fandom
Genre: Crossover, F/M, M/M, not actually RPF, tw: transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-27 10:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6280699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Traci wants to go dance shopping. Evan tags along. He is prepared to throw down against a ballerina in a dance supply store. Traci has a better solution. Written for the <a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/">comment_fic</a> prompt: "Any, any, Getting in Touch With Your Inner Bitch". Set post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink Shoes

Joe had a legitimate excuse for not being here. He was in California presenting at some kind of math symposium, the official function of which Evan was unclear on, the unofficial function of which was for a bunch of math nerds to fawn all over him for having solved one of the Millennium problems. Rodney's excuse for not being here, however, was simply that he didn't like shopping. His official excuse had also involved much science that Evan couldn't quite comprehend despite how long he'd lived with a bunch of very smart, scientific-minded men, but the crux of it was was that he didn't like shopping. So Evan was following Traci through yet another dance store in downtown Colorado Springs, carrying pink bags full of dance gear. Jeannie, Madison, and Caleb were coming to visit again. Madison had taken up ballet lessons, and Traci was excited for a real dance companion, not just going out to clubs and shaking it with Victor-Kiki and Echo-Kiki whenever they came into town.

It was a good thing Madison was such a sweet, level-headed child, because with all of the shiny, glittery ballet gear Traci was buying for her, she could easily be spoiled rotten.

Of course, Traci had to have her own updated dance gear if she and Madison were going to dance together. Usually she was pretty complacent to dance in a tank top, a pair of sweat pants or workout pants, and foot wraps, but now she wanted actual gear. Pointe shoes. A dance belt. Other ballet things that Evan hadn't even known existed.

"What do you think of these?" Traci held up a pair of black pointe shoes. They looked like pretty much every other pair of shoes she'd showed Evan.

"I don't know," he said. "Have you tried them on? Made sure they're comfortable?" Just because he was an artist didn't mean he was an authority on fashion. Years of being in the military and wearing an assortment of uniforms meant his sense of fashion was actually a little bit broken, or so Traci complained on a regular basis.

"I'm not even going to bother to try them on if they're not cute," Traci said.

Evan smiled patiently. He was going to kill Rodney for this. And Joe – Joe was going to get cut off from his favorite almond cookie bars for a week just on principle. "I don't know anything about ballet, remember? My sister's a tattoo artist."

"Didn't you dance on the commune?"

Evan snorted. "Not ballet." Unless getting stoned and holding hands and swaying unsteadily in a circle counted.

Traci frowned at the shoes. "Okay. Well, I kinda wanted the pink ones, but –"

"If you want the pink ones, get the pink ones," Evan said gently. John didn't care what any of his imprints wore, as a general rule, but the imprints were pretty sensitive about how people reacted to them even if they were rarely let loose in public like this.

Traci beamed at him. "Okay." And she turned and trotted back over to the shelf of shoes.

Evan sighed in relief and leaned cautiously against a display case of tulle skirts.

"You too, huh?" A man said.

Evan turned. A young man, maybe in his twenties, was perched on a tall stool, various pink bags scattered at his feet. He looked exhausted.

"Out dance shopping for your – your girl." The man smiled tentatively.

Evan smiled in return. The guy was trying. "Yeah. Well, she's not my girl, we're just roommates, but all of the other roommates chickened out, so here I am."

"That's nice of you," the man said. "My girlfriend is auditioning for the local ballet company, so she needs the perfect stuff."

"Traci's boyfriend's niece is coming to visit, and said niece is taking ballet lessons, and I guess Traci sees this as the perfect excuse to buy a bunch of new ballet gear." Evan shrugged. "And I'm not sure I'd consider myself nice. The other roommates will have their reward when this is over."

"How long has Traci been dancing?" The man peered past Evan at Traci where she was staring ponderously at the pairs of pink pointe shoes.

"Ever since she was a little kid. Took a year off in high school. Bullies. Broken femur. But basically all her life," Evan said. "That I know of. We only started working together, okay, about a decade ago now."

"Sheena's the same," the man said. "It's always been her dream. Prima Ballerina."

"I don't think Traci ever had hopes of that," Evan said softly. "But she loves to dance. And she's good." While Traci was female, she took advantage of the fact that she had a male body, and when she did dance, it was breathtaking.

A cry rose from the other side of the store. "But that's the last pair!"

The other man was on his feet immediately. His girlfriend, blonde and willowy and tall, was trying to loom over Traci, who had a pair of pink pointe shoes clutched to her chest.

Evan was on his feet a second later, crossing the store in a few strides. The other man was on his heels.

"Kyle," the blonde woman said, a distinct whine in her voice, "I need those shoes. They're the perfect ones."

Traci clutched the shoes tighter. "I need these. You have no idea how hard it is to find shoes in the right size."

"Sheena," Kyle began. He cast Evan a pleading look.

"Are you saying my feet are big?" Sheena demanded.

"Traci," Evan said, low and warning.

Sheena sneered. "Is that really your name? Or just the name you use when you want to get in touch with your inner bitch?"

Traci reared back in shock. "It's really my name," she said in a small voice.

Oh damn. Evan knew that look. Tears were imminent. Why did Joe and Rodney think he was better at dealing with tears? Because he was a sensitive artist? He'd spent two decades of his life as a soldier, dammit. But he'd been XO on the Atlantis Expedition. He'd wrangled arguments between Zelenka and Rodney. He could do this.

"Sheena," Kyle said sharply.

"What?" Sheena demanded. "He's some kind of freak who –"

"I'm not a freak," Traci insisted. She sniffled. "I'm just – this is who I am, okay? I didn't ask to get stuck in this body. Nobody asked me what I wanted. But this is my body and I've done my damnedest to be a good dancer and I need these shoes to dance."

Evan stepped between Sheena and Traci, hands raised in a gesture of surrender. "Ladies, why don't we step back, take a five-minute breather, and try to discuss this like rational adults?"

"Ladies?" Sheena echoed.

Kyle hissed, "Stop it. Don't be like this, Sheena." He cast Evan an apologetic look.

Evan quickly recalculated the situation. "Sheena, right? Look, Traci –"

"Can speak for herself, thanks." Traci stepped around Evan and planted herself in front of Sheena, hands on hips, shoes gripped tightly in one hand. "Look, Sheena. If you really need these shoes for something real, something significant, other than for the mere fact of wanting to deprive me of them because you don't like me, I'll give them to you. You can have them. Ordering them online would be a hell of a lot easier than coming out here and seeing the way people look at me and laugh at me and talk about me when they think I can't hear. But I'm a person and I have just as much right to be out here – and just as much right to these shoes – as you do. So, why do you want these shoes?"

Kyle looked as his girlfriend, worrying his bottom lip.

Evan remained behind Traci, respectful of her assertiveness but ready to jump in at a moment's notice. Which was silly, really. Even though Traci was taller, Evan was bulkier, had more weight to commit in a fight, but John had always been able to kick his ass at sparring, and even though Traci was in control, John was close by, ready at a moment's notice to defend Foxtrot.

Damn. Was Evan really considering getting into a throw-down with a ballerina in a dance supply store?

"Sheena?" Kyle asked softly.

"I really need those shoes," Sheena said, and her voice shook. "I have an audition tomorrow for the prima ballerina spot with the Colorado Springs Ballet Company, and I –" She collapsed to the floor and started weeping.

Kyle recoiled sharply, then remembered himself and moved to comfort Sheena, but Traci held up a hand.

"I've got this. One dancer to another." She knelt down and put an arm around Sheena's shoulders, hugged her and started rocking her. The shop clerks hovered nearby, watching worriedly.

"I get it," Traci said, voice gentle and soothing. "You must be really stressed out. Auditions are awful. Everyone makes you feel like a failure. It's all criticism, all complaining. Posture's not good enough. Turn-out's not good enough. Form's awful. You spent your whole life, hours and hours of work, to be told you're awful. That the thing you dreamed of is out of reach, even though dancing is your soul. Don't listen to them, all right? Don't let them trample all over your soul. And if you need a bit of comfort, like a lucky pair of ballet shoes, I understand."

Sheena sobbed into Traci's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I'm just – I can't eat. I can't sleep. I'm so tired and so scared. I didn't mean it."

Traci patted her hair. "Yeah, you did, just a little bit, or you wouldn't have said it. It wouldn't have even come to your mind. But I understand how stressed you are, so I'm going to let you buy these shoes – this time. But don't ever say that again, not to me or anyone else like me, you hear that?"

Sheena nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She threw her arms around Traci and wailed afresh.

Evan took a deep breath. Okay. Situation defused. Stand down, soldier.

"I'm really sorry about that," Kyle said in a low voice. "I didn't know she felt like that. So many of the dancers she dances with are gay, and I –"

"Not your fault," Evan said. "You tried to do the right thing."

They stared at the weeping woman. Traci was sniffling too.

"So, how long do you think this is going to last?" Evan whispered.

Kyle winced. "She could be a while."

"Don't worry," one of the clerks said. "This happens all the time around audition season." She scooted past them and laid a tissue box in Sheena's arm's reach.

"She did kinda break down last year too," Kyle admitted. "Traci seems to be keeping her cool, though."

"Traci," Evan said, "on top of being an awesome dancer, also served twenty years as an officer in the United States Air Force, a good chunk of it in a combat zone. If there's one thing she can handle, it's stress. Also, she's just kind of awesome as she is."

Kyle looked Traci up and down and blinked. "Huh. I didn't think the Air Force –"

"Not till recently," Evan agreed.

"So...the shoes?"

"How about I go get those pink ones from Traci and you buy them, and you hunt down a pair of black ones in the same size for me, and we can get out of here," Evan said.

Kyle nodded. "Roger that." He grinned and threw Evan a non-regulation salute and scurried off to look at the black shoes.

Evan knelt down and took the pink shoes from Traci, who smiled at him, and he couldn't help but smile back. He really loved her, as a sister and a friend. But hell if Rodney and Joe weren't going to pay for this.


End file.
